The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund was launched on July 4, 2007, to symbolically emphasize its commitment to farmer and consumer independence.
It was formed in large measure as a result of a government crackdown on producers of raw milk, and the emergence of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Part of its purpose was to “Protect the nation’s family farms from harassment by federal, state, and local government interference with food production and on-farm food processing.”
Today, it is facing financial problems similar to many nonprofit advocacy organizations, and indeed, Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation will be helping via a fundraiser (announcement coming in September).
But a bigger challenge facing the young organization concerns its identity. Is it, as its name suggests, an aggressive court representative of farmers seeking to challenge regulatory excesses? Or is it a service organization that provides legal and regulatory advice to farmers trying to establish cow-shares and buying clubs to serve the growing number of consumers seeking nutrient-dense food?
Now, I presume these questions are being addressed internally at the organization. As a big fan of the organization since its founding–and its dedicated team of Pete Kennedy, Gary Cox, Tim Wightman, and Cathy Raymond–I thought I’d weigh in with my own take on the situation.
The identity issue assumes added urgency because the FTCLDF is in the midst of a bad streak on the legal front, having come out on the short end of three recent major legal cases.
The first legal setback occurred in California, after it obtained a temporary restraining order to block enforcement of the state’s controversial raw milk coliform standard, AB1735. Its request for a longer-term judicial interference, an injunction, was denied in May 2008, and in effect, the judge was casting doubt on the case. The case is awaiting trial, possibly by the end of this year.
The second problem occurred in November 2008, when a New York state court denied a request for a permanent injunction on behalf of Meadowsweet Dairy, a cow-share type operation, holding that it must operate under authority of NY State Ag and Markets. That case is under appeal.
And then last month, a U.S. District Court dismissed the federal court case it put together against NAIS. holding in part that the case should have originated in a Michigan court.
The legal setbacks contrast with the FTCLDF’s activities in a different arena–on the service front, where it has been extremely successful. Its lawyers have helped hundreds of farmers establish cow-share and goat-share operations.
Similarly, it provides farmers and food producers advice on buying clubs, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and other sorts of private distribution approaches. It also intervenes on occasion when regulators seek to interfere or question such approaches.
So one of the questions confronting the organization is how it continues its legal intervention efforts. Court challenges of existing laws and regulations is both time consuming and very expensive. Cases can take years to conclude, and cost many thousands of dollars. Providing services is much less time consuming, and less costly.
One obvious approach to deciding what to do is to take the business approach. If you’re in business pursuing two different markets, and one is successful while the other isn’t, you go with the one that is. In the case of FTCLDF’s two types of initiatives, it seems clear that the court “market” is much less receptive to helping owners of sustainable farms than consumers are. They love cow shares and buying clubs as a way to gain access to nutrient-dense foods the government would just as soon they not have. So in this view, you go with what works. From a policy perspective, you try to beat the system via volume—you help create so many farms serving so many consumers that, eventually, it doesn’t matter how negative the official channels are.
But running a legal defense fund isn’t necessarily so straightforward. It isn’t a conventional business. It is committed to seeking rights that are being compromised. So it could be that it needs to reassess its court actions, rather than discontinue them. Perhaps it has to focus more on influencing the legislative front. (It has almost single-handedly brought the problems of HR 2749, the food safety legislation, to public attention.)
No matter where it comes out, though, the organization has had a huge impact in raising awareness among both farmers and consumers as to the high-stakes game being played in terms of food rights. I’m sure it will find a workable path to continue and expand its efforts.
Last week Claravale announced that they would no longer be involved in the legal fight against CDFA and the corrupt "AB 1735 sneak attack" in CA in late 2007. During this legislative sneak attack high level CDFA administrators told a series of untrue statements to the staffers at the Assemby Ag Committee. The untrue statements included a complete lie that AB1735 was needed to comply and "harmonize with FDA PMO mandated raw milk standards".
We all know damn well that there are zero FDA raw milk human consumption standards.
This lie then convinced the ag assembly committee chairman Nicole Parra to pass the bill quietly "on consent" with out so much as one hearing and zero notice to the two producers of raw milk in CA. The public had zero opportunity to object and the science of the decision was never debated.
The obsurd new standards were passed into law and were a complete shock to the two producers and have disrupted production many times at OPDC and Claravale in the last two years. Even though not one pathogen has been discovered in eithers dairies raw milk prior to and or after AB 1735 was passed.
When Nicole Parra discovered that she had been misled…she was furious and demanded that AB 1735 be changed and or withdrawn. She said that "AB 1735 would stand over her dead body". Big Dairy and CDFA refused to cooperate and politically blocked the change. Several hearings were held and more than a thousand raw milk consumers, scientists and even the COO of Wholefoods attended and pleaded for better more fair standards. All efforts failed and were blocked by GOT DEAD MILK and CDFA back door politics. As a direct result CA raw milk has been a very tough road.
For some reason Claravale felt uncomfortable continuing the fight to expose the truth and make CDFA accountable for its lies. OPDC was then left as the only dog in the fight and the FTCLDF felt that this weakened the effort considerably and that the resouces should be focussed on other high level fights that will be disclosed very soon.
As a result OPDC decided to drop its portion of the lawsuit as well to focus on other efforts.
We are very disapointed in Claravale. We believe that democracy and the consumers deserved more and that the truth needed to be exposed and this story told. Adminstrators would have lost their jobs.
Now the CDFA criminal acts will be swept under the rug never to be heard of again.
We will not forget and we have learned from this treachery. We now view CDFA much more cautiously and are always on guard. OPDC will continue to produce raw milk for the consumers of CA…in the future when the tipping point is reached, we will change laws and make them more fare to all involed.
Until then we persevere.
All the best,
Mark McAfee
Mark
Mark
And the remedy simply begins and ends with GREEN GRASS?
Plus more reasons to question or maybe even abandon the "factory farms"
http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0609web/farm.html
Farmacology by Dale Keiger Associate Editor of Johns Hopkins Magazine
Kellog Schwab director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Water and Health says that if he tried he could not build a better incubator of resistant pathogens than a factory farm.
And is there a MRSA "link" it may depend on which "scientist" one believes.
Government and University Scientists are confllicting with the political interests that stand above them.
This can not last forever….something is going to break. We all know the human bodies of the consumers have paid a horrific price for this misconduct.
We can all be proud….look at the progress in the last five years.
I invite all of you to stream online at KFCF.ORG this Thursday at 1300 hours PST. This is Free Speech Radio with Gena Kirby and the program is called Progressive Parenting. The guests are Mark McAfee and Dr. Donald Fields associate professor of medicine at UCSF and chief of medicine at Valley Childrens Hospital in Fresno CA.
Subject……Raw milk and its tremendous immune system rebuilding properties. DR. Fields uses raw milk extensively in his practice with great success. He will discuss the rare and delicate proteins that are contained in raw milk and how these proteins, bacteria, enzymes and other elements work with our gut and immune systems to heal all sorts of diseases that are rampant today.
This is true medicine….it does no harm and it uses food to prevent….what a thought!!
Please join us by streaming along at http://www.KFCF.org. It is critical to our progress away from dead food and poisons in our medical therapies. NPR will syndicate this program nationally if interest is shown. This is the grass raw roots in action.
Raw Milk Rocks!!!
Mark McAfee
Mark
I pray that they can beat the 3-5 year start-up trials I hope they find a few sugar-daddies who won’t compromise their mission, and that farmers and consumers who benefit from FTCLDF’s activities either directly or indirectly ‘get it’ and donate accordingly.
Mark thanks for the update in CA. So sorry that momentum dropped. It’s a sad thing that people only stay mad for a little while. (Seems we need more outrageous harrassment of farmers to maintain public outrage? Maybe you ought to suspend operations as a stimulus to get more consumers involved?)
OK way off topic but I’m reading "The Devil in the Milk" by Keith Woodford. A2 milk is eventually going to be a marketing tool whether they get the research done or not. It can take 10-20 years to convert to an all A2 herd, and I think raw milk farmers ought to lead the way. They have smaller herds and 1st call on the healthy milk market. Thoughts?
Ducking and running,
-Blair
That’s not true (unless cream isn’t considered "milk") – Campylobacter is a pathogen.
RAW CREAM RECALL ANNOUNCED BY CDFA (September 2008)
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/egov/Press_Releases/Press_Release.asp?PRnum=08-061
Campylobacter is the leading cause of GBS, a post-infectious paralytic syndrome that can permanently damage a previously healthy person with a normal immune system.
http://tinyurl.com/mp5z67
And, there was Listeria detected in raw cream the previous year (September 2007)
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ArchiveRecalls/2007/ucm112271.htm
You notice that I say correctly….OPDC raw milk has never had a positive pathogen test result and this is a 100% true statement.
There was a campylobacter found in our raw cream one time…but not the raw milk that it came from.
This was the cream sample that was lost in the CDFA lab shuffle and was accidently sent to Sacramento to sit for a few days before it was then it was sent to LA to be tested and it took 7 days to be cultured. A retest of the cream was negative.
Remember that this campylobacter test requires specialized antibiotics to be used in the test protocol in order to get campylobacter to grow. There was no incidences of illness reported during this period….so it was a non event and actually CDFA apologized for the lost sample and the big confusion.
I have never ever said that raw milk is perfect. I have always said is…. that its consumptiojn improves immunity including the immunity to pathogens.
Remember that pathogens are just bacteria that do not know that humans have special labels and names for them. They just seek out environments that they can thrive in. When humans give them an opportunity they thrive and make some of us sick.
So lets change the conditions so pathogens do not have a place to thrive and humans have better and stronger immune systems that do not tolerate them.
Pathogens are mostly a manmade situation. If we followed natures principles there would be far fewer pathogens. Big Dairy and Big Pharma created some of the worst of these pathogens by abuse of antibiotics and CAFO operations…but have not taken responsibility for them. This is a true crime against humanity.
Kykke….when are you going to compliment the raw milk producers for eliminating lactose intolerance, building strong bones, reducing asthma, colds and ear infections and allergies and IBS and Crohns in tens of thousands of people.
You criticize but you never complement for the good things we do for people.
Mark
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